Igår blev det klart att Georges St. Pierres ådragit sig en knäskada och att han därför drog sig ur den planerade titelmatchen mot Carlos Condit på UFC 143.
St. Pierre och hans läkare Dr. Simard har via en telekonferens berättat om händelseförloppet och i korthet kan man säga att mästaren haft bekymmer med båda sina knän under en tid och att han måste under kniven. Läkaren menar att framgången för operationen är 95% och med tanke på St. Pierres fantastiska förmåga att återhämta sig så kommer han bli återställd inom sex till nio månader.
”A few months ago I was on top of the world but now I’m in a downfall, but you recognize a champion by how he comes back from a loss, not how he is when everything goes well. Everybody that says bad stuff about me now, mark my words, I’m gonna tell you right now, right now I’m in a downfall in my life, but in a few months I’m gonna be back stronger than ever and I will be champion again. I promise.”, sa Georges St. Pierre under telekonferensen.
Om man vill sätta sig in i alla detaljer kan man läsa hela utdraget från telekonferensen (hämtat från MMAMania) efter hoppet.
Från Dr. Simard framkom följande:
”In the preparation for Carlos Condit, he injured his left knee during a sparring session. The diagnosis at that moment was a sprained MCL, a diagnosis that was confirmed by the MRI. Georges tried to continue his trainign camp even though he had the pain and while doing another sparring session, he had the little injury on the right leg at the time and the diagnosis on his right leg was a pulled hamstring. So, having injuries on both knees, we decided to cancel the fight against Mr. Condit.
Georges went on and did his physical therapy and rehab and everything went perfectly. He recovered completely from the injury to the left knee. He started back training and while doing wrestling, he tried to defend a takedown and at that time, he suffered a hyperextension on the right knee. He felt pain and he heard a crack inside his knee at that time. It was terrible to walk and there was not much swelling on the knee so he tried to continue training but in the few days after, he felt the pain and the instability was increasing so he called me, he was in Vegas and we did an MRI on Monday morning. I saw Georges yesterday with the results of the MRI and the physical exam that I did confirmed that Georges suffered a complete tear of his ACL and a small tear of his internal meniscus on the right knee, which is not the same knee that he suffered the sprained MCL in mid-October.”
”Considering the instability and the pain, surgery for Georges is mandatory. There’s no way he can compete with the problem on the right knee. We’re looking at doing an ACL reconstruction with meniscal repair. The technique that’s going to be used is the technique of anatomical ACL reconstruction, which is the best technique for this kind of injury.”
”I’m expecting a full recovery for Georges within 6-9 months. The success rate for this surgery is above 95 percent. I’ve been the treating doctor for Georges for five years now and I did two surgeries on him already for elbow endoscopy. His recovery rate is completely off the charts. He has an amazing genetics and he has extraordinary physical capabilities and I know Georges has the discipline and the determination that’s gonna allow him to be back to the same level of competition that he was before the injury.”
Georges St. Pierre sa följande:
”I believe that there is only one person to blame for what happened and it’s myself. I’m the kind of guy where sometimes I endure pain and go through it and that’s what I do all the time. I learned a big lesson in my life and it’s only gonna make me stronger, smarter and more clever. It’s nobody else to blame, it’s myself. It’s a freak accident that happened in training. This injury I have, it’s called a ’compensation injury’ because I compensate because one of my legs was almost 100 percent healed but I was compensating a little bit more with the other and I think that’s what happened. It’s all about compensation and I learned the hard way.”
